Japanese Cybercultures

Japan is rightly regarded as one of the most technologically advanced countries in the world, yet the development and deployment of Internet technology in Japan has taken a different trajectory compared with Western nations. This is the first book to look at the specific dynamics of Japanese Internet use.
It examines the crucial questions: * how the Japanese are using the Internet: from the prevalence of access via portable devices, to the fashion culture of mobile phones * how Japan's "cute culture" has colonized cyberspace * the role of the Internet in different musical subcultures * how different men's and women's groups have embraced technology to highlight problems of harassment and bullying * the social, cultural and political impacts of the Internet on Japanese society * how marginalized groups in Japanese society - gay men, those living with AIDS, members of new religious groups and Japan's hereditary sub-caste, the Burakumin - are challenging the mainstream by using the Internet.
Examined from a variety of interdisciplinary perspectives, using a broad range of case-studies, this is an exciting and genuinely cutting-edge book which breaks new ground in Japanese studies and will be of value to anyone interested in Japanese culture, the Internet and cyberculture.

Nanette Gottlieb, Mark McLelland

Acknowledgments Contributors Introduction 1. The Internet in Japan Nanette Gottlieb and Mark McLellend Part I Popular Culture 2. Individualization, Individuality, Interiority and the Internet: Japanese University Students and E-mail Brian McVeigh 3. Deai-Kei: Japan's New Culture of Encounter Todd Joseph Miles Holden and Takako Tsuruki 4. Cute@keitai.com Larissa Hjorth 5. From Subculture to Cyberculture: the Japanese Noise-Alliance and its Utilization of the Internet Costa Caspary and Wolfram Manzenreiter 6. Filling in the blanks: Lessons from an Internet Blues Jam Gretchen Ferris Schoel Part II. Gender and Sexuality 7. Challenging Society through the Information grid: Japanese Women's Activism on the Net Junko R. Onasaka 8. Cybermasculinities: the Internet and Men's Groups in Japan Romit Dasgupta 9. 'Net'-Working on the Web: Links between Japanese HIV Patients in Cyberspace Joanne Cullinane 10. Private Acts/Public Spaces: Cruising for Gay Sex on the Japanese Internet Mark McLelland Part III. Politics anbd Religion 11. The Great Equalizer? The Internet and Progressive Activism in Japan David McNeill 12. Creating Publics and Counterpublics on the Internet in Japan Vera Mackie 13. Language, Representation and Power: Burakumin and the Internet Nanette Gottlieb 14. Activism and the Internet: Japan's 2001 History-Textbook Affair Isa Ducke 15. Self-Representation of Two New Religions on the Japanese Internet: Jehovah's Witnesses and Seicho no ie Petra Kienle and Birgit Staemmler Bibliography